


pain and truth and choice (and other poison devils)

by x (ordinary)



Category: Apex Legends (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Death & Resurrection, Death Wish, F/F, Finger Sucking, Psychopathology & Sociopathy, Respawning, Sadism, The past Octane/F!oc is only mentioned, Verbal Humiliation, Violence, Voice Kink
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:34:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24639241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ordinary/pseuds/x
Summary: Caustic is terrifying, vicious, and cold.Octane would do anything to impress her.
Relationships: Caustic | Alexander Nox/Octane | Octavio Silva, Past Octane | Octavio Silva/Female Original Character - Relationship
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12





	1. Pinned

**Author's Note:**

> **Warnings, tags and rating will be updated as chapters progress! This will indeed become solidly Caustic/Octane.**
> 
> title from a perfect circle - counting bodies like sheep

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been a long time coming, both because I am gay and because I am finally happy with it. The next chapter is being revised and the final one is loosely plotted out, so hopefully that will keep me honest!

Octane had once dated a girl obsessed with collecting bugs.

She'd been a very careful girl-- very methodical-- who would stop at nothing to further her collection. Her excursions plunged deep into the Outlands to planets nigh unknown, and her preparations were both meticulous and exacting. A carefully plotted path to ensure safe passage, gear for the often toxic atmospheres, weapons to combat the local wildlife she'd studiously researched, gleaned information from explorers purchased with credits in hand.

And a fount of neverending patience to lay in wait for her quarry.

It didn't matter if it was the woods or the sea or the desert. It didn't matter if it was pure ice or molten lava or ravines so deep no light could penetrate their depths.

 _Nothing_ would deter her from her hunt. Nothing _could_.

Not even Octane.

So, instead, she waited for minutes that ticked into hours that ticked into _days_ until the coveted species-- and they _were_ coveted, these little (and not so little) things with exoskeletons and venom and a mind so foreign to a human's that Octane can still hardly imagine it-- revealed themselves unto her. Things to be ensnared and whisked off for safekeeping, so that they could be given a new home.

It was not so much an interest as an _obsession_ , as a fervent need to _study_ that smoldered insider her like coals in a fire of old.

Octane still remembers, clear as day, the first time she'd heard her wax poetic about the process of preservation with a fervor you would think it something holy. The first time she'd sat backwards on a chair to watch the careful touch of an entomologist as she slid pins into thoraxes and wings and realizing that it was a ritual divine.

It stirred something deep inside her that has not yet settled, an animal loosed from its cage with the taste of freedom still fresh on its tongue.

Octane heaves a shuddering exhalation, tearing her eyes away from Caustic as she gazes upon a vial with an all too familiar intensity. The bitter memories of a time long since gone flutter off into out of mind and out of sight, but that feeling still remains, the dregs of it forever in her belly. A leaden weight to carry with her and inside her, because one thing is for sure:

Everyone remembers the first time they'd been a jealous lover. That had been hers.


	2. Escalation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Octane's vision stays trained upwards with rapt, skittish attention. A nervous laugh crawls up and out of her throat and then dies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I DID IT! mind the tags. 
> 
> this does utilize my canon that legends die for real in the game and are respawned afterwards. once they drop they turn into a death box, and they get brought back after the game is over.

What's got two busted robotic legs, an RE-45 with no bullets, and two expired banners?

A stupid dumbfuck cornered bitch, _that's what_.

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, _fuck_. Octane can count on one hand the number of things more miserable than being cornered and helpless as the last one standing in a squad and yet she'd _still_ walked (okay-- ran) right on into it like a fly taking a flying leap into a spider's web.

This is what she gets for rolling the bones on thermal. It always, always, _always_ betrays her, but she never seems learns. She'd just been banking on the fact that the squad that had picked off _her_ squad off from the top of harvester was now getting dunked on by hungry wolves thirsting for sniper blood.

So she figured, hey. Eight squads left, two and a half rings in, and a good chance that thermal was looted and a ghost town by now. Ten painstakingly long seconds was all she needed to pop a much needed phoenix kit. That's all! ten seconds! Odds had to be in her favor, right? Maybe?

Sort of?

Well... about that.

Octane's vision stays trained upwards with rapt, skittish attention. A nervous laugh crawls up and out of her throat and then dies.

"Uh," she says, the wobbly smile plastered on her face heard rather than seen, "fffancy seeing you here, _amiga_?" Her voice cracks at the end.

Her back is up against the literal wall. She squirms, legs sparking beneath her. They are beautiful and expensive and _extremely_ trashed, all twisted metal and exposed wiring. It guarantees that they'll need some time in the shop, but it _also_ guarantees that any lingering hope she may have had about being her usual slippery bitch self is done, _gonezo_ , dead on fucking arrival.

This is where she's going to bite the bullet, and what a fucking waste. She's been on fire all _day_ in one of her best games all month. Octane was good-- no, _great_ \-- at toppling face first into danger with irreverent glee. She throws herself towards whatever Bloodhound picks up in a manic bender of hipfire sentinel shots after a hot drop with an energy that just. Kept. _Going_.

Trust _Caustic_ to be the one to ruin her fun. She's got a bad habit about doing that, and it's kind of annoying, really. On more levels than one. 

Octane wheezes, her breath rattling in her lungs. Gas traps do a real number on them, and she'd dived right into _four_ of them. At once. Like someone very cool and wise and strategic and also very sexy.

_Mierda._

Of _course_ Caustic doesn't reply, but that's not anything Octane isn't used to. Even when they're on the same squad, Miss Doctor Evil Scientist spares few words for _anyone_ unless she's insulting them or lusting over on some act of violence she'd just committed in a voice that always makes Octane a bit... _Uncomfortable_. 

It's not her fault! It's just... _dude_ , okay, it is _unfair_ that she has to spend all day listening to that voice rasp ' _victory is delicious'_ and _'I enjoy many things, but **death** is what inspires'_ through a respirator when it makes stomach swoop and her pussy throb. Dread and excitement is a _very_ confusing combination, and being around Caustic ramps that up inside of Octane _all_ the way up to 11.

But times like these? When they're pitted against each other thanks to that morning's luck of the draw?

Being so _close_ to Caustic in games like these always makes it worse.

Distantly, she's aware that she's _really_ in for it now, because Caustic is looming over her fallen form with an air of vague curiosity and _immense_ disappointment. The light filtering into the window of the dusty storage room casts her in an almost angelic light, reflecting off the stray wisps of hair that had escaped from her severe bun. It distracts Octane until sharp green eyes flicker down to hers to pin her in place, and _madre de dios_ Octane wishes her legs worked. 

What she wouldn't do to slide out of this shitty little room and put meter after meter between her and the not-so-good-doctor, because she'd rather take a chunk of shotgun pellets to back instead of having to _literally squirm_ beneath Caustic's judgment like a bug ready to be squished.

With a wordless sigh and a wince, Octane spreads her hands in a vague shrug of apology at her foolishness. She's not even sure _why_ that instinct kicks in, because there's nothing to apologize _for._ The games are just the games, no hard feelings. You're all in it to win it through any means necessary, and that doesn't exactly beggar fair fights. Octane _specifically_ takes any cheap shot that she can, so it's not like she can get her underwear in a twist over getting caught out by the same tactic she's fallen for before. 

Even if she's fallen for this one in particular like. A dozen times. Or more.

 _Ugh_.

Caustic always does this to her: twisting her stomach into knots and sending her mind racing, even if Octane cuts herself a little slack given the potential for noxious gas induced delirium. Her heart vibrates in her chest, a rattling that isn't just her wheezing breath.

Maybe it's because Caustic's always cared about things being _interesting_ instead of just plain winning. Her tests come before all else, and she latches on like a predator with lockjaw, sinking her teeth in until she hits bone. She cares about her _experiments,_ and those don't always align with victory. 

(She'd once dated a girl obsessed with--)

Octane's stomach sinks like a stone when she realizes that she's probably an experiment herself, and a sub-optimal one at that.

It feels... worse than dying, honestly. Dying is _easy_ , dying is _quick_ \-- and fuck, most of the time, dying is fun! Adrenaline runs in her veins thicker than blood, excitement is her middle name and _danger_? Danger is her closest friend. But being left in limbo like this-- adrift with expectations of her that Octane doesn't understand, their meaning just out of reach--

Ugh.

Ugh, ugh, _ugh_.

Caustic finally-- _finally,_ even though it has only been _moments_ , a blink of an eye for anyone else whose thoughts don't race at the speed of _sound_ \-- hums a little sound of disapproval under her breath, closing the gap between them in a single step.

Before Octane can go down in flames with her thoughts Caustic grabs at her chin, tugging it upwards with a sharp jerk. The noise that escapes her is indignant even as she freezes.

The glove that rubs up against her mask is tacky with blood. Only some of it is hers.

"How _mediocre_ you are proving to be, Octavia," Caustic says. All eight words work in tandem to shove Octane's head headfirst into ice water. "I was under the-- apparently _ill-conceived_ \-- notion that you endeavored _not_ to be boring." Her voice drips with disdain as it reverberates through her mask in The Way that makes Octane squirm. Beneath her own mask, she bites at her ragged lip with her broken tooth as her thighs clench on instinct. She groans miserably, and probably not for the reason Caustic thinks.

 _Letting her down_ implies that there's a potential scenario where she can _please_ Caustic, and that pulls Octane in about seven directions at once. It's all she can do to try and focus on her rattling breaths to steady her-- but, that's the magic word, isn't it? _Try_?

The grip on her face is cruel, and in the wake of her uncharacteristic silence, Caustic shakes Octane in her hold as though she were scolding some sort of animal. To get Octane's _attention,_ and she _really_ doesn't know how to tell her 'Hey, _bella dama_ , you don't have to worry, you have it _all_.'

Instead, she crows with a rasping, delighted laugh.

"Ooooh, that all you got for me, _amiga_? You just gonna feed me lies?" The force of her laughter shake her in Caustic's grip. Octane takes _pride_ in the fact that she's an impulsive joyride of a wreck, and all of her twisted up insides over Caustic's approval or disapproval doesn't overwrite the innate desire to poke the bear. "You have me at your mercy, and first thing you do is go full school teacher again, huh? You gonna teach me a _lesson_?"

She devolves into trailed off giggles and then devolves further into a horrible, hacking cough. Her damaged throat and lungs don't exactly play nice with her perpetual enthusiasm.

Caustic's iron-clad grip holds steady, and she's unsurprised to see fresh specks of red painting Caustic's apron after she's done. From a previous lecture (and lots and _lots_ of experience) Octane knows that nox gas is designed to drown you from the inside out. She has to wonder if that'll kill her before Caustic decides to put a bullet in her head. It's anyone's guess, but she's curious.

She's always so, so curious. 

"You diversionary tactics leave something to be desired," Caustic sneers, her lip curling so powerfully that it manages to show on her face beneath her mask. "Lashing out like a child, all because you cannot bear to hear the truth that you have grown _complacent_."

She lets Octane go with a scoff, shoving her head back hard enough that it smacks the wall with an ugly crack. Octane clutches it with a yelp, teeth clicking shut. The pain resonates with her on a primal level, and the combination between it and the crooned, unkind words directed to and about her makes her body too-warm. A bead of sweat trickles down the side of her neck. It might be blood.

The fervent desire to prove herself before a woman with unattainable expectations swallows Octane up, until she is subsumed by the tidal wave of _I'll show you._ Caustic is _wrong_.

Octane has never known when to quit, and she isn't about to start now. Not when things are just get interesting.

"Complacent?" she snarls, " _cabrona_ , did you miss my pretty face plastered up on the banners all day, huh? Kill leader _and_ the champion?" Octane tilts her head up in defiance before flipping Caustic off. "More than we can say for you, _sí_?"

It goes over as well as a lead balloon because Caustic merely waves it off, and something in Octane's belly tightens. _Everything_ comes second to the science, even winning. It's something that sticks in her craw, stitching itself across the fabric of her mind. It's _why_ she's the experiment that's no longer so interesting. It's _why_ it's so weird that Caustic is sitting here playing with her _food_.

But... If she was so boring, why would she be doing her little villain speech? Why wouldn't she just be finishing her off to observe it?

(A phantom memory slithers in between her ribs. The last time she'd been in this position, it had been a solid 3 punches to the face and a rumbling "this is my favorite part" burning in her ears.)

"As you are well aware, Octavia, the opinions of others are irrelevant to my own." She drops down into a crouch in front of Octane and her broken legs. Close enough to see the crow's feet at the corner of Caustic's eyes and the severe slash of her furrowed brow behind blood splattered goggles.

Octane's eyes stay wide, wide open even as she takes in a slow, shuddering breath. Caustic smells like blood and chemicals and mud and gunpowder. She smells like the _games._

The announcer drones on that the ring is closing, but it means nothing to her. A quick check of her map and Caustic laughs a little herself. They're safe here, for a little while longer at least. Safe in the supply closet of a building laid against the train tracks of thermal station's top.

It feels disconnected from the rest of the universe, from the game itself. Just her and Caustic and cruelty and death and a _voice_ that makes her want to spread her legs and part her lips in almost-obedience.

She's drifted off again, because Caustic's hand strikes like a viper to take a hold of Octane's throat and then _squeezes._ Her glove sticky and cold against bare, grimy skin. Octane doesn't fight it, forcing herself to stay relaxed even as her goggles are yanked up and her mask is tugged down. She feels so _exposed._ It'd be less vulnerable to have her tits out. Caustic surely knows that.

She shivers, blinking her way through the sudden brightness, and then says with a voice so sure:

"Fuck. You."

Caustic gaze would almost be pitying if it weren't so disappointed.

"An unintelligible argument, as always. It's as though you're _aware_ of your own shortcomings and are simply unable to defend yourself from criticism, and so you resort to insults. _How predictable_. Time and time again, you fall into my traps as you make the _same_ reckless mistakes, never learning from the last. Empirical evidence suggests that you've become a rather predictable variable in the games." Her voice has grown darker, storm clouds warning of rain. Octane can almost taste the ozone on her tongue. 

She's so _close_ , now, their foreheads almost pressed against each other. Her hand winds into Octane's hair, just long enough to grab. A convenient handlebar, she'd told Ajay with no small amount of smugness, cackling at how her friend made a face. ('Silva! I've said it a thousand times-- I don't want to hear what yuh _do_ in the _bedroom--')_

Now, Octane is torn between arousal and fury. To have Caustic's attention this _close_ \-- her piercing gaze is only inches away from her face, and the sound of her breathing through her respirator is heavy in Octane's ears-- is almost too much. Her heart is going to burst from its prison, ribs cracking, blood spraying, her death rattling in her chest--

Octane feels her eye twitch, and she knows for a fact that her usual ruddy flush is out in full force. The warmth slowly spreads itself across her scarred olive skin. Down her face, down her neck. The hair on the back of her neck rises. Pain pricks at her scalp; the hold is tight. Too tight.

She turns all of her focus on Caustic in turn, a scattershot laser narrowing in its scope. Sitting pretty and enduring a lecture has never been her bag.

"Okay, _fine_ , so you caught me this time! But, like. _No es gran cosa amiga!_ It's not like it's my fault you just _got in my way._ " Never mind the expired banners of Crypto and Mirage hanging out by the big fucking leaf looming over the hill. Never mind her cracked shield. Never mind her empty clips. "You and I both know that I run circles around you all day, doc. If I'm so predictable, you'd manage to _catch_ me on _purpose_. Instead you're just a little _araña_ lurking in your web. You just _wait_ for success instead of taking it for yourself."

The cool glove that has laid heavy on her neck as a reminder more than a threat tightens again. Between that and the grip on her hair, well. Octane wonders how long it's been since Caustic has had both of her hands full of _girl_. She'd bet a while.

Time to make it memorable.

"Go ahead," she goads, chin tipped upwards. Her voice is hoarse. "Since we've been here before, you already know I can take anything you dish out. So what you waiting for, amiga? Kill me. I'll love it."

Caustic gives Octane's throat a squeeze hard enough that violent coughs make her lean body shudder, until dark spots dot her vision. She puts both of her hands around the thick gloved wrist to no avail. It only ensures that the grip on her hair loosens so that Caustic can throttle her with curious eyes and both hands.

"What a delightful invitation," Caustic says, her own breathing labored, fuzzy through her own mask. Octane kicks out her legs but it doesn't fucking _do_ anything, just sparks and steel grinding. Black spots creep in around the corners of her eyes.

She has seen Caustic kill so many, many times. Some in an instant and some savored, but never quite dragged out like this. She doesn't normally get her hands dirty, and Octane has a laugh that can't emerge burbling up from inside her. Even now, she wears her gloves. Even now, she is unfazed--

Except.

Octane's not the only one whose flush could give her away. Just enough of Caustic's cheeks show through her mask that Octane can _see_ that she's affected, too. A light dusting of pink, and upon closer inspection, the tips of her ears are, too.

Anticipation builds behind Octane's fucking _teeth_ and she doesn't know what she's waiting for, except an end she needs to run up against like waves against a cliff. It has her muscles tensed and hackles raised. She is shaken not stirred, she is a grenade mid-thrown without its pin. 

(She’d once seen a frantic dog breaking its teeth on the bars of its cage. Now she understands its blind desperation.)

Desire pulsates in her chest alongside her fleeting rabbit heart. She desperately wants to do what she does best: dive headfirst into danger regardless of the trouble to follow, and she is so, so close.

She has suffocated before and knows _exactly_ how long it takes before she passes out. Soon, she knows. Soon, and it's hard to quash the disappointment in her belly alongside the blind panic of dying. All that teasing, and for what? 

Then Caustic releases her and the world rights itself beneath her, leaving Octane sucking in huge gulps of air that stung. Her lungs felt _wrong,_ and yet the desire to chase her gloved touch pulsates in her chest. 

"Alas, Octavia, you must persist for one final test before we're _truly_ out of time," Caustic says, and forces two gloved fingers into her mouth without warning. They are heavy on her tongue and taste like blood and dirt and whatever the fuck it is that makes up the chemical warfare that is nox gas. She swallows around them anyway, drooling and gagging. Gagging _for_ it.

Octane is in over her head so deep she might as well be drowning and she's never been so ecstatic.

"You," Caustic croons, "above all others, have the potential to become a worthwhile specimen." She hums a contented little sound that makes Octane acutely aware of how wet she is, cunt tingling. The rubber of the gloves rub slick against her gums, pressing against her teeth. It is an examination. "So imagine _my_ disappointment, Octavia, that _you_ would be so passive in expressing your desires."

The piercing green of Caustic's gaze punches through her like a .50 cal bullet to the temple. The words, when they sink in, follow suit. 

A full body shudder runs through Octane like a roaring river busting down a damn, and all she can do is moan and attempt an "oh shit" through her very full mouth that comes out muffled and full of saliva. Her brown, bloodshot eyes are so, so wide with alarm and interest, pupils blowing until black swallows up the brown.

 _O_ _h._ There goes her flimsy cover, blown wide open. She'd never imagined that this was even a _possibility_ , let alone something that Caustic may have been impatiently waiting for. 

Octane desperately reaches for Caustic's wrist again, but this time, it's to hold her closer. To take her fingers in deeper even as she gurgles and chokes under Caustic's watchful gaze. She wants to do better-- and more than that, she needs to _show_ it. 

She swallows around them, tears flowing as Caustic languidly fucks her mouth with her fingers, pressing back against her soft palate just to see how far Octane will go to please her. Spit dribbles down her chin as Octane struggles not to heave. 

Caustic leaves them there, stuffing three digits between her chapped lips _deep_ and suddenly covering her nose, a sadistic glint alight in her eyes. Octane's eyes fly wide open, struggling to pull away on pure survival instinct. Caustic shoves her back up against the wall she'd leaned away from; there's nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide. There is only this: Octane's throat desperately working to hold rubber clad fingers in place, her chest shaking with tiny little breaths that she can't quite draw, and the distinct knowledge that she's never been so fucking wet.

Again, she thinks of her suffocation, and then moans, muffled. Her entire body tenses like a muscle, kicking her useless legs all over again--

Caustic pulls away entirely and laughs. It is unkind. She wipes her gloves against her apron, as though she were ridding herself of dog drool. "It's good to see that you _do_ know how to behave," she says, voice husky as she stands. Sometimes it is very clear how much older Caustic is when Octane can hear her knees crack. It's kinda funny, in a way. When you sign up for the games, you a get out of death free card in perpetuity-- it just doesn't make you any younger or any more whole. Octane would know.

Octane _also_ collapses back in a heap like a puppet with cut strings. She cleans off her face with the back of a hand as she pants for air for the third time that day. It's hard to believe what had just happened. She surreptitiously pinches herself, just to be sure.

When she's recovered enough, she offers two thumbs up. "Only sometimes," she replies, voice rough in a way that does not match her very, very eager tone. She licks at her upper lip where it's split. "When it's worth my while, anyway, _amiga_. You shoulda told me this was on the menu!"

It earns her an oddly human roll of the eyes. 

"I _assume_ , then, that you've been given proper motivation to _seek me out_." Her last words are almost cut off by the announcer ringing out again, and Octane blinks. She feels as though she's run a handful of marathons in the span of three minutes and it's just not _fair_. She wants more. _Now._

"You giving me a blanket invitation?" she asks, watching as Caustic reloads her mastiff one shell at a time with smooth, efficient motions. She looks almost wistful as she presses it up against Octane's chest.

"Yes, Octavia. I am." She slides her boot too close until she can step down against the zipper of Octane's pants, grinding the heel down with clear intention. Octane's hips stutter upwards and her thighs quake, mind swirling with unadulterated desire. It's not _enough,_ but she supposes that's the point.

It's just a taste of what's to come if she does what she's supposed to and comes to heel. So Octane blows Caustic a kiss.

"See you soon, _querida_ ," she says, and then it's lights out. Two pumps and shells blow her chest wide open with a bang _bang_ , and that's it, she's done, _fin._ Her deathbox drops to the ground as the sweet oblivion of death and rebirth overtake her. Her new body is already reassembling itself in the respawn chamber, and when Octane's eyes wide open, she grins and cackles too-loud.

Caustic really, _really_ doesn't know what sort of trouble she's invited in, and fuck, Octane can't wait to show her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please forgive me for the spanish/offer corrections! they are much welcomed.
> 
> spanish-- 
> 
> bella dama = beautiful lady
> 
> no es gran cosa? = no big deal?
> 
> querida = dear


End file.
